What I worried about the day before the election

Brown women worry about things other people can't even imagine

Dec 31, 2020

Trigger Warning rape culture, violence against women

There was a lot of talk about how civil unrest might break out in the USA in the aftermath of this election. Even now, when Joe Biden has been declared the winner, civil unrest might still happen. Even after he is inaugurated president, it could still happen.

Biden is himself a warmonger and a racist. He will not allow Black and brown people to protest police brutality or anything else without doling out state violence upon them. We only have to look at his record, which includes supporting segregationists, the drug war and the 1994 crime bill, being an supporter of the war in Iraq, or what happened in Standing Rock while he was Vice President to his buddy President Barack Obama. He even asked California’s top cop, Kamala Harris, to be his Vice President. Harris, as her state’s attorney general, locked up Black and brown people for non-violent marijuana offenses and used inmates as cheap labor (that’s called neo-slavery).

So on Monday night, Nov 2nd 2020, I was packing dried fruit for my bug out bag and talking to my friend on the phone at the same time.

“My condoms that I ordered still haven’t arrived,” I told him.

“You seem to be very anxious about that,” he teased, “planning on using them with someone?”

“No,” I said, “I’m worried about being raped.”

*Stunned silence*

“That doesn’t compute,” he finally said, a baffled look on his face.

“Because you’ve never had to worry about being raped,” I told him.

“But how would you even convince a rapist to use a condom?”

“Anything can happen when you’re being raped. But if I don’t have a condom, there’s not even a hope of convincing a rapist to use it.”

*Stunned look*

“These are things brown women worry about,” I told him.

“I’m sorry that’s something you have to think about.”

“Yeah.”

“I have some ordinary non-organic condoms if you want them?”

“It should be OK, the ones I ordered should get here soon.”

“Ok, well let me know if you still want them. I’m going to bed now.”

“Cool.” I ended the call and continued packing dried berries in a bag.

Men have no clue. White women have no clue. They have no idea that rape is a weapon of war. They have no idea what a war zone looks like. They have no idea how gangs of men roam the land with weapons, looking for brown girls and women to hurt.

But I know, with my family twice refugeed just in this last century and one thousand years of colonial trauma behind me. I know all about it. Hindu women are still victims of rape today in a war that goes back one thousand years to when India was first invaded by colonizers. Do you think I give lectures about gender based violence and rape culture and Indigenous rights because I like the sound of my own voice?

Those who don’t know will be shocked when they experience what war is really like. When they see how the people they’ve known for years and thought to be good upstanding humans will harm them. When they themselves do unspeakable things that they would never have done in a normal situation. Men and boys can get raped too, you know. And LGBTQIA+ people, they have no chance in a war zone. And children? Children are always the first casualties. They get stolen, sex trafficked, suffer horror after horror.

This is the horror that the US has inflicted upon other countries for decades and decades. In Asia. In South and Central America. In Africa. In the Middle East. In Black and Indigenous communities all over this country also. This white supremacist patriarchal horror has been experienced by BIPOC women and femmes and children and men worldwide because we didn’t stop our own government from inflicting this imperialist rape culture on the world.

I kept saying it. I kept saying not to uplift warmongers and imperialists. I kept saying that patriarchy is at the center of every issue. I kept telling you not to support alleged rapists and pedophiles. I kept warning you again and again.

No one listened.

And here we are, with me worrying about condoms just in case I can talk a rapist into wearing one.

War will come to the USA, by the way, regardless of what happens in this transfer of power from one alleged rapist pedophile to another alleged rapist pedophile. US foreign policy has made it impossible to stay out of war. US caused climate chaos has made it impossible that we will not be fighting over the basic resources of water and food in the years to come, as well as oil, gas, lithium, and on and on.

I first predicted civil war in this country in 2006, during the George W. Bush years. I always knew it would come to this. Be in denial if you want, but such denial will only lessen your chances of surviving such a war. Plant food in your community, catch and filter rainwater, create solar and wind energy resources where you live, build healthy positive inclusive relationships with your neighbors, work on your internalized patriarchy. That will help keep privileged western people alive. Do it now.

But I’m a brown woman of Indian Hindu descent. Those things will help me but they won’t keep me alive and unharmed.

Do you know what the Rani of Jhansi told her men before she led them into battle against the British? She told them: “If I fall, take my body and burn it immediately. Don’t let the enemy touch my corpse.” And her men followed orders. When she fell from her wounds, they hurried to take her body to a secret location and cremated her right then and there, so the colonizers couldn’t desecrate her remains.

But you see, the Rani of Jhansi’s Indian men actually believed her. They rode with her into battle and laid down their lives alongside her for their sacred freedom. And when the time came, they followed her orders, so that the colonizers would never be able to touch her body or her dignity.

By the lost gallery — LAKSMIBAI, RANI OF JHANSI

I don’t have that luxury in this country. Men don’t believe me. Just two days before the election, a white man I’ve known for years told me I wasn’t “credible”. On the night before the election, my friend offered condoms but he didn’t say: “They’ll have to go through me before they get to you.”

I am surrounded by cowards and it’s very likely that you are too.

So if you haven’t stocked up on protection, any protection, all protection, go and get it right now. Even if you think you don’t need it. You very likely will.

And if you’re thinking: “Why does she have to stress me out by talking about this?” then you’re exactly the person I wrote this for. If you weren’t stressed out about this already then you need to do some serious thinking. Maybe then you’ll do something to stop someone from being raped. Or maybe you won’t. You won’t know until you’re in an actual situation where you need to speak up, and specifically, a war zone. And let’s face it, you very likely haven’t spoken up in times of peace so why would you speak up in times of war? Especially if you voted for an alleged pedophile rapist, such as Biden or Trump. You are very likely one of the cowards I was talking about and that’s why you need to think about this.

But why should I, as a brown woman, have to carry this alone? Why are my brown sisters always carrying this alone? Maybe if more people stressed about war rape, we brown women wouldn’t have to. Maybe two alleged rapist pedophiles would never have been allowed to be in power in any capacity, let alone as elected presidential candidates. Maybe we wouldn’t live in a colonizers’ empire that enacts violence upon Black and brown and Indigenous women/womxn every day. And if, by some miracle, war doesn’t break out over the next few weeks, we can use this insight and wisdom to move forward with a better understanding of just how deep rape culture goes and how we must dismantle it to heal everyone.